All aboard the Tax Justice Bus!

The Tax Justice bus reaches Sunderland today, and will be outside the Minster from 11.30-2pm - if you are in the area, you must pop in.

This campaign, run jointly by Christian Aid and Church Action on Poverty is clearly the most crucial of our age.

As companies and individuals increasingly find ways to 'legitimately' avoid paying taxes, aided by their rich friends in government, it is the poor who are hit hardest. From the streets of the Philippines to the estates of Pennywell, it is those who have least who are suffer when healthcare and education services are cut because the rich do not pay there share.

As Osbourne boasts another £10 billion in benefits cuts to come in the UK, this is nothing compared to the hundreds of billions of lost income due to tax evasion. Globally, the rich are in power, and they want to spend as little as they can on the rest of us.

The tax justice movement is about rebuilding the case for the redistribution of wealth. It is about saying that rich companies can no longer make huge profits in poor nations, and fail to contribute something back to those societies. Tax justice means that those of us who have gained the most from our economies must be willing to make sure that everyone benefits from the wealth of a society, not just the few.

Most of my readers are thankfully not religious, but I hope all can appreciate the wisdom found in ancient scripture: 'Let those who have two coats share one with the person who has none, and those who have bread, share with the person who has none'

Tax Justice, the redistribution of wealth, is the hall mark of the fair and compassionate world that we all have a hand in building up.